CORVVSI INFRACTI ET DISCIPLINA ET ARS PAENITENTIAE
by OneMillionAndNine
Summary: Sometimes a man is defined as much by what he's lost as by what he's gained. A S.SnapeM. Weasley study.


TITLE : CORVVSI INFRACTI ET DISCIPLINA ET ARS PAENITENTIAE  
  
Author: OneMillionAndNine  
  
Feedback: kokotheuberchimp@hotmail.com  
  
Summary: A Snape backstory. Sometimes a man is defined as much by what he's lost as by what he's gained. It should be noted that, canonically, the Potions Master has never once singled out Ron Weasley for torment.  
  
Category: Angst, het, romance, Snape/M. Weasley  
  
Archive: sure  
  
Disclaimer: I did not invent any of these characters. They belong exclusively to Ms. Rowling. No disrespect intended.  
  
~::~::~::~::~::~::~::~::~::~::~  
  
He didn't know why he went to Hogsmeade that day.  
  
Actually, that was a wholly untrue; he knew perfectly well why he'd gone. James Potter had flown him bare-arsed naked around the Hogwarts courtyard on Tuesday, and if he had to spend another day avoiding eye contact with every living thing on school grounds and assiduously ignoring the sniggers that dogged his every step, he was going to wind up in St. Mungo's.  
  
It didn't work; of course it didn't. If it were that easy to run away from one's problems, everyone would do it.  
  
Without teachers there to keep them apart, he and Potter had found each other and gone from the pathetic dueling 5th year students were capable of to the even more pathetic Muggle fisticuffs.  
  
True, he was bigger than Potter, or at least, taller, but that hadn't stop Potter from getting the better of him.  
  
It was all but a melodramatic requirement that it rain and every dog in the village try to bite him as he trudged, bloody and bruised, down the muddy streets of Hogsmeade. Less so, perhaps, that anyone should come to his rescue, but come they did.  
  
In retrospect, he would have been better off to have taken his chances with the elements and wild beasts.  
  
At the time, it seemed like a clear choice - an oversized black canine with its teeth clamped too tight around his wand to allow him to use it, or a red-headed witch in lavender robes. He should have told her he didn't need her help, thank you. What difference would one more humiliation have made, more or less?  
  
The way he remembered it, she did not even bother to draw her wand; she simply pinched the beast's nostrils until its mouth popped open and he was able to extricate his wand. He was bruised, sodden, and muddy; his wand dripped viscous dog saliva until he thought wipe it on the sleeve of his robe. Somehow that didn't much help.  
  
"You're an utter mess," the witch said. The wind and rain had no affect on her person at all, but her robe had been hastily buttoned, allowing him a clear view of a rather ample bosom. Boy that he was, he drew himself up to his full height in order to peer down at her as imperiously as possible. She was, he saw, rather short.  
  
"If I couldn't see your breasts right now, I fear my dignity might be irreparably wounded."  
  
It didn't have the desired effect.  
  
She laughed. Loudly.  
  
"Molybdena, Molybdena Freake." She extended her hand and her eyes glinted merrily. Instead of the handshake she clearly expected, the boy bestowed a muddy kiss on the back of her clean, dry hand.  
  
He knew the name if not the face - an old family, part of the circle of Old Family names he'd learned before he knew his first spells; Black, La Strange, Fudge, Freake, Crouch, Malfoy, Snape, Weasley.  
  
"Severus Antonio Snape, at your service." He attempted to remove the mud from her hand and succeeded only so far as to smear it further. She gave him a look that assessed the situation perfectly - a well-bred if singularly unprepossessing boy from an old family with more social standing than financial resources, with more pride than common sense.  
  
"Would you like to come in and dry off, Mister Snape? That is unless you have important business at The Ministry?"  
  
It was a monument to the self importance of youth that it took him several moments to realize she was teasing him.  
  
~:~:~:~:~:~:~  
  
He had to say that his first opinion of her house and his last recollection of the place coincided perfectly with his assessment in retrospect; she had appalling taste.  
  
The colors were garish, the furniture overstuffed, and most things in the tall, narrow house had no notion that form might follow function. The foyer was burnt orange with aubergine blobs, giving the viewer the impression they were recovering from an unfortunate nausea-inducing spell. His mother would have sent over a house elf with orders to paint if she had known such decor existed.  
  
Clearly, blood did not necessarily indicate breeding.  
  
Beyond that, the house also held a cycloptic cat with half a tail, a ferret with bandaged feet, and the most wretched-looking thing he'd ever seen, squalling in a mess of twigs.  
  
"That's hideous," he said.  
  
"No," she corrected. "That's Caesar. He fell from his nest outside the Three Broomsticks last week and his mother won't take him back. He smells of magic now, and the wild ravens don't like it. He'd be done for if I didn't take him in," she said, lifting the nest in her arms.  
  
"It's still hideous," he said honestly.  
  
"And so are you. You've tracked mud everywhere. Why don't you -?" She gestured to his wand.  
  
He frowned. "I don't look much better clean."  
  
"But my floor might." She extended her wand while balancing the nest in one hand. "SCOURGIFY," she said, and executed a perfect flick and swish.  
  
Fighting a dog for his wand was only marginally less dignified than sitting in a room as wildly uncouth as Molybdena Freake's parlor. He had to admit her tea was good, though.  
  
It didn't take much coaxing for the whole story of the cruel and plebian James Potter to be recounted scornfully in this strange witch's living room. Between poking worms down the repulsive bird-thing's throat and muttered insults when it really mattered, Molybdena nodded at the appropriate points in his narrative. The boy was, for once, too delighted to glower.  
  
Those things happened, his adult self supposed - that completely guileless verbal barrage, when someone truly listens to a boy who's been very effectively taught to be seen not heard all his life. It was embarrassing to recall.  
  
The boy went beyond that; to school, to the barbarism of the world at large. He enumerated it all as though he were the most wronged creature that had ever had the misery of existence. It was most likely quite dull.  
  
When he reached the subject of parents, only the words "My fath-" escaped before good sense caught up with him and he stopped cold.  
  
"What of him, Sev?" she asked with alarm, as if she were willing to do battle with Lord Snape that very instant.  
  
"He's a legilimens," the boy said flatly.  
  
"Does he do it to you? I mean ... read your mind?" she asked in barely concealed shock.  
  
"No," he said. "He reads everyone else's and recounts the horror." He made a choking noise that might have been a laugh, then lowered his voice in what he prided himself was a perfect imitation of his father. "'Severus, you realize your mother wishes you were never born? That's the 12th time this week, I believe. The woman is nothing if not predictable.'"  
  
"He could be lying," she insisted.  
  
"I doubt it," he said.  
  
"Is there anything I can do?" she asked.  
  
"About my father?"  
  
Severus the man was more than well-acquainted with precisely how boring the pathos of adolescence could be viewed from the outside. She probably made her subsequent offer in a desperate attempt to get him to stop whining.  
  
"Would you like another biscuit, Sev?" Molybdena asked, helplessness in her voice, her face full of somber concern. Then cocked her head. "Or would you rather have a shag? Would that help at all?"  
  
Perhaps she thought it was all she had to offer him; perhaps she thought fixing boys was as easy as fixing broken birds.  
  
Young Severus was not so completely self-involved that he failed to notice the witch in whose parlor he sat. She lacked the that pristine beauty of, say, Narcissa Black, but she was far from unattractive. Her appeal went in a very different direction. She had a round face with abundant dimples, a mouth like a pink rosebud, and a heavy chest offset by a ridiculously small waist and wide hips. Her copper hair hung all the way to her thighs. His mother would have called her looks 'common'. It would have ruined the moment to think about what his father would say.  
  
"Sev?"  
  
The boy managed to indicate the affirmative, then promptly broke his tea cup.  
  
"REPARO," she muttered with a flick of her wand. "I mean it, Sweetheart," she said somberly before dropping her robe to her Feet. "If anyone really could use a good cheer-up, it's you."  
  
The loss of his virginity went pretty much as could be predicted. In short, it was terrifying and lasted all of three seconds. It was closely followed by an encouraging talk from Molybdena and a second attempt that both deemed far more successful.  
  
He was 15; she a well-seasoned 20. Later she readily admitted she had mistaken him for a 7th year, and if it hadn't been for his school robes, she would have guessed that he was older.  
  
Through no fault of hers he lay uncomfortable and silent afterwards, the covers pulled up to his neck. She, in contrast, was glorious. The flush of sex still clung to her. Her beautifully rumpled hair and kiss-bruised lips rendering him acutely aware of his personal unattractiveness, even more so as she wound a lock of his hair around her finger.  
  
He frantically tried to come up with the most painless way to leave, preferably a method in which he dressed discreetly under the bedsheets.  
  
She frightened him further by clearing her throat.  
  
"Sev," she said thoughtfully, "I think I could be of some help, with Potter I mean. I wasn't half bad at dueling when I was at school. What do you say you come back next week? Saturday morning, but not too early. I'll help you with your dueling and we can have another round or two in here? Kiss and make up, as it were? That sound good to you?"  
  
"That would be acceptable," he said, kissing her hand and blinking rather uncontrollably.  
  
He could not help but be stunned.  
  
~:~:~:~:~:~:~  
  
He continued to be so stunned for the next week that he barely noticed when James Potter charmed his divination book shut.  
  
~:~:~:~:~:~:~  
  
He came back again and again. Her door was always open to him.  
  
~:~:~:~:~:~:~  
  
There were times, however, when he seemed to do or say something utterly wrong without realizing.  
  
One particular instance that sprang to mind had occurred when the topic had been Muggles. He was nose-to-nose with his Arithmancy homework. Molybdena was struggling to stuff a half-fledged raven with worms - it might have been Caesar or another similarly ugly bird.  
  
"Why do you reckon we hide ourselves from Muggles, Sev?" she asked.  
  
He answered her patronizingly, without bothering to look up from his work "To keep them, I imagine, from attempting to worship us, or kill us, or both."  
  
"You think they'd do that?"  
  
"You must be joking," he muttered.  
  
"I mean now, Sev, today. They did those things in the past, but they wouldn't be like that now, would they?" Her pretty brow knit itself.  
  
"Muggles don't change, my dear Molybdena," he chided her, quill in hand, taking a quick glance in her direction before continuing to fill the parchment with his cramped, tiny writing.  
  
"Do witches?" she asked. "I mean, look at us."  
  
"What about us?" he asked as the bedraggled cat wound itself back and forth between his ankles.  
  
"All the old families are related. My cousin Arthur says it's impossible for a European witch to marry pure blood without contributing to rampant inbreeding." She poked another worm down the bird's gullet.  
  
He spoke the words to his paper. "And your point is?"  
  
"My point, Sev, is look at the Olympians."  
  
"What about them?" he asked, sitting up in shock.  
  
"Come on, Sev - incest, patricide, treachery, the deaths of thousands of Muggles in what amounted to wizard family disputes." She snorted. "Not exactly the most idyllic period in our illustrious history."  
  
"Those alliances produced some of the most powerful wizards the world has ever seen," he said as if by rote. "Besides, the less Muggle blood, the less chance of producing a squib." He gave her a look of supreme disgust at the very notion.  
  
Her answer was a distinct "Harrumph."  
  
"I would sleep with my own sister before I'd bed some Muggle animal," he continued sanctimoniously.  
  
"You don't even have a sister."  
  
"If I did, I'd prefer her to some mudblood trash like Lily Evans." He scowled to think of the nerve Lily had, pitying him. "You know the one - Potter's girl."  
  
Molybdena took on a curious expression. "Really? I heard she was rather pretty."  
  
"Evans is not good enough to wipe your boots on," he said with unbridled contempt.  
  
Molybdena froze, then went back to her bird.  
  
He chose to keep his head down and finish his Arithmancy work. It was late afternoon before she spoke to him again.  
  
He was puzzled, but he'd be damned if he was asinine enough to apologize without knowing what he had done wrong.  
  
~:~:~:~:~:~:~  
  
While Molybdena wasn't a professional cheerer of wizards by means sexual or otherwise, she was an extremely enthusiastic amateur. Over the months he learned not to arrive at her door without warning, or else risk sitting in the hideous foyer while he waited for some visiting wizard to leave her bed.  
  
Early Saturday mornings, the scent of some freshly apparated wizard still on the sheets, she would greet him in her dressing gown and take him to her bed. Later they would take down the mirrors and square off with their wands. Her favorite hex was 'PETRIFICUS PHALLUS.' He never had the heart to tell her that on a 15 year old wizard the effect was barely noticeable.  
  
Within a month the point was moot, anyway; he was too quick for her to get a single shot against him.  
  
~:~:~:~:~:~:~  
  
She seemed to find it quaint that he insisted their trysts invariably take place in the bed. He repeatedly informed her with no uncertain indignation that she was a hedonist and obsessed with novelty and most likely a number of other unwholesome things, all of which made her laugh.  
  
~:~:~:~:~:~:~  
  
On his birthday she gave him a small glossy black box.  
  
He had just polished off half a tall lemony cake, and that was plenty - more than he'd expected, in truth. It always seemed like plenty, coming from her, because she always gave unasked.  
  
"To match your...everything," she said.  
  
He eyed the box suspiciously before lifting the lid.  
  
"Is this a prank?" he asked. "It's empty."  
  
She rolled her eyes. "No, it isn't. Look closer, Sev."  
  
"There's nothing there," he insisted.  
  
"Give it here." She took the box and delicately lifted what looked to be a sliver of bright glinting light.  
  
He squinted, trying to understand exactly what his only birthday present was.  
  
"It's a needle, see? A magic needle. Sews on its own. From now on, whenever you rip your robes because you're fighting hippogriffs or not looking where you're going or whatever it is you do at that school that you make such a mess of yourself, you won't have to walk around looking like a derelict wizard until the next time you bring me your laundry. Very handy, I think."  
  
He didn't even remember how it was that she started mending his Clothes, but he took the needle, though he never used it.  
  
Instead, he wore it on a thread around his neck. It only poked occasionally. She must have noticed, but she never said a word.  
  
~:~:~:~:~:~  
  
He never felt the fluttery romantic symptoms often associated with love in boys that age. Rather, he experienced a sense of profound relief when stepping into her tall, narrow house. She always referred to him as her 'friend' and they spent more time disagreeing than they did locked in amorous embrace. This didn't stop him from holding in his mind the idea - somewhere between a fantasy and an assumption - that some day, a suitable amount of time after he left school, she would become Lady Snape. After his mother died, she would redecorate. That would be good for many years worth of snide disagreement.  
  
She was the first person with whom he could ever share his thoughts without reservation or hesitation. He could easily forgive the fact that she kept a convalescent home for animals in her parlor, and that her cousin Arthur stopped by at annoying moments, presumably to borrow money.  
  
He once had to spend an entire rainy Sunday afternoon seated across the foyer from Arthur Weasley, listening to an excited treatise on the amazingly uninteresting topic of Muggle Relations.  
  
Once, when the banging over their heads became impossible to ignore Arthur - Arthur her cousin, Arthur the miserable little clerk - said "Molly likes to have a good time, but she's a good girl, really, where it counts."  
  
Severus replied, "I have nothing but the utmost respect for Miss Freake." And it was true.  
  
While discreet inquiries to Lucius' older sister informed him that Molybdena was the mistress of two different Ministry department heads, this only impressed him, as if their power rubbed off on her, somehow. The foolish boy treated it as some mark of distinction that his semen glazed the same thighs as the Minister of Magical Games and Sports.  
  
From time to time, Molybdena would remind him he was perfectly free to see girls from school. He sneered at the very suggestion. What did those girls have he could possibly want?  
  
~:~:~:~:~:~  
  
Then one day, she was simply gone.  
  
The lot where her house had stood was mockingly empty.  
  
He waited for some sort of message. None came.  
  
He buried the needle in the dark earth of the Forbidden Forest, perhaps in vain hopes of being eaten alive by savage beasts, or at least getting detention.  
  
As usual, his movements were noted by no one.  
  
~:~:~:~:~:~:~  
  
He was in Diagon Alley, on his own, buying books for the new term when he saw her hurrying past with a baby in her arms.  
  
Quick as his shocked reflexes allowed, he yanked her into the narrow space between Flourish & Blotts and Madam Malkin's Robe Shop.  
  
She looked ready to scream until she saw who had his hand clamped carefully over her mouth. "Sev," she sighed, sounding put out. "Don't make me late. I'm meeting Arthur for lunch down at the Ministry."  
  
"Molybdena, is it - Is it yours?" he stammered, looking at her and the red-haired baby in her arms in horror. Perhaps she could not tell how devastated he was; perhaps, for once, she simply didn't care. In any event, her expression remained unmoved as he pleaded, "Is it mine?"  
  
"Sev," she said in warning, "you're just a boy and Arthur is a good father."  
  
"But is it mine?" he hissed.  
  
"Serverus," she said sternly, "what was I supposed to do?"  
  
"Not marry a clerk," he snapped.  
  
"Marry a fifth year, instead?" she asked, clamping her hands over the baby's ears. "Not bloody likely," she whispered. "And I wasn't exactly in a position to wait for you to finish your NEWTS. The other two were married, and you are practically a baby yourself."  
  
He looked down. "I'm about to start 6th."  
  
"Oh Sev," she sighed, "I'm sorry."  
  
This was perhaps not the best response she could have given him. A wash of rage rose over him and he tightened his grip on her arm until it pained both of them. "You've been foolish, but these things can be corrected. When I finish school, you will leave your cousin Arthur and you will marry me."  
  
She snorted. "And live where? With your parents at Snape Hall? Spend the rest of my days having shouting matches and being bullied by a pompous twit in that dreary old place? No thank you. I like Arthur Weasley. I'm happy with him."  
  
"And you don't like me, is that it?" he hissed. "I've never made you happy." It resonated, the notion that she found him wholly inadequate.  
  
"You have a good heart Sev, but you're selfish and rude and you believe all sorts of ridiculous things. You're a boy, Sev, a boy with a lot of growing up to do yet."  
  
He wanted to scream at her, to say that she had led him on, toyed with his affections. He held his tongue, less because the charge was wholly inaccurate than because he found it embarrassing.  
  
Instead, he stood there stiffly, releasing his grasp on her arm and pronouncing his judgment as though his judgment somehow mattered. "You, Madam Weasley, are a whore."  
  
She snorted. That was just like her, he thought, not to care what people thought. Or, more precisely, not to care what he thought. "Look, I know your feelings are hurt, Sev, but I have more important things to consider."  
  
His eyes narrowed. "Such as?"  
  
"My son," she said.  
  
He had never felt more animosity for anything in his entire life. James Potter now had a rival for his position as Severus Snape's arch enemy, and it appeared to have soiled its pants. He didn't care whether it was related to him or not - it had stolen his only real friend.  
  
He wrinkled his nose at her. "It appears that your priority needs changing."  
  
She was right; he was pompous and ridiculous.  
  
~:~:~:~:~:~:~  
  
Time moves on, regardless of how pompous one is, and it pays no attention whatsoever the hurts of young boys.  
  
Even years after the fact, Severus was at a loss to explain how he became close to Lucius Malfoy, or even, in retrospect, if they were close at all. He knew perfectly well that Lucius considered him his closest friend. But Lucius was also heard to describe his wife, Narcissa, as the love of his life even though the two of them spoke more to the servants than they did to one another. It was a similar situation between him and Severus.  
  
It was clear to Severus he and Narcissa had been chosen by Lucius in much the same way; not unintelligent wizards from unassailable families with good taste and reserved natures. Narcissa could have been her husband's female twin, while Severus Snape - scowling, dark, hard-favored - made a perfect foil beside fair, handsome, charming Lucius. Severus and Narcissa amounted to accessories; a pair of cufflinks, one light and one dark.  
  
Not that Lucius, in his own way, didn't care; he did. And that was when their relationship became disconcerting - a concerned Lucius was an overbearing Lucius. A powerful dark wizard he might be, but at times he was also something of a mother hen. Perhaps when it was reduced to its most basic essence, that was the root of love and friendship; the desire to control.  
  
If so, Severus loved only himself.  
  
In the scant weeks since Lucius had announced that Narcissa was carrying his child, his heartfelt haranguing of Severus had become maddeningly predictable.  
  
"It's not simply for your own sake that you ought to take a wife, Severus," Lucius said as they strode down the dirt lane that ran between the Old Grove and Maison de Malfoy.  
  
"It's for my own sake that I shouldn't marry," Severus answered acidly.  
  
"I am being quite sincere when I say I believe it is your duty to our Dark Lord, not to mention our cause, to contribute more than your magical effort to the continuation of the race," Lucius said. "It's unbecoming, really, the number of our circle who are making no contribution to the blood at all; you, Barty Crouch, Bellatrix," Lucius rambled on as he and Severus kept up their pace. "If Bellatrix were as loyal to our Lord as she says, she'd spend less time ferreting out the whereabouts of the rebels and more time on her back."  
  
"I'm sure you're right," Severus answered him. There were, in fact, a multitude of arguments crowding his brain.  
  
"And the reason you have done nothing is?" Lucius asked.  
  
Severus, predictably, remained silent for a time before he managed to come up with, "It would require quite a bit of effort. And, most likely, a charm of some sort." He muttered the last under his breath.  
  
"What?" Lucius looked at him sharply.  
  
"Fortunately, I am renowned for my personal magnetism," he said sarcastically.  
  
"The trouble with you, Severus, is that you consistently fail to understand women. What women desire in a wizard is not looks, but power, and that you have in full."  
  
Snape digested this notion and grunted at Lucius in reply.  
  
"If I didn't know you better, I would be inclined to think you were still mooning over that slut you kept company with when we were boys," Lucius said, opening the front door.  
  
"Hardly," Severus snorted.  
  
"Still," Lucius said with a sigh, "blood like that and wasting herself on a wizard barely worthy of the name." He shook his head. "Producing young at a phenomenal rate, as well."  
  
"Alert me when they get to lucky thirteen and I shall send them a goat," Severus said flatly.  
  
Lucius laughed. "Excellent. You might like my gift, then."  
  
Severus suddenly felt somewhat ill as Lucius ushered him past a still sylph-like Narcissa, who barely acknowledged their presence, and down the hall toward the room that was invariable his own whenever he stayed the night. He felt sicker with each step and hoped against hope that Lucius had simply redecorated.  
  
Ahead of him, Lucius was speaking: "It wasn't all my doing; you have Bellatrix to thank as well."  
  
"I'll send her a goat, too," Snape murmured.  
  
Lucius turned around with the most disarming smile. "Try to look on this with an open mind, will you? Or I shall decide you are irredeemably ungrateful."  
  
Severus glowered but his mouth formed the words, "Thank you so very much for your concern, cousin, but - "  
  
"But nothing. Take a look, hear me out, then tell me you are declining my gift." He opened the door.  
  
Lucius began talking again but only a few phrases managed to find their way into Severus' brain as his eyes searched the room.  
  
"...a girl of good blood..." floated in at him, followed by "...only flaw is a foolish father..." and "...begged for mercy..." then "...Bellatrix thought you might find her appealing."  
  
The words "guaranteed intact" forced him to close his eyes for a moment.  
  
Sitting on the edge of the bed was a young witch, past school age, but not by much.  
  
Clearly, both Bella and Lucius knew what he liked entirely too well. She was not a duplicate of Molybdena - her hair was closer to strawberry blonde than red, and she had an altogether different complexion, all cream with no unctuous freckles. But she was definitely that sort, possessing an innocent loveliness that contrasted wrenchingly with his conspicuous lack of both.  
  
"No, Lucius," he said flatly. "Absolutely not."  
  
"You aren't giving the poor girl a chance," Lucius said indulgently. "ACCIO ROBES," he said, leaving her naked before the two wizards as her robes floated into the blond man's hands.  
  
Severus was ashamed, as embarrassed as he would have been if he were the one undressed. He felt his face go hot as the girl looked up at him, beseeching. What exactly did she expect him to do? Surely she understood his position here was as untenable as her own.  
  
"Her entire family was slaughtered," Lucius said seductively. "Imagine how grateful she would be for your kindness."  
  
"I am not known to be particularly kind," said Severus slowly.  
  
"Grateful for your protection, then," Lucius amended.  
  
It was too late. There were some lines even most servants of The Dark Lord would be hesitant to cross, and forcing your purported friend's hand to cup a woman's bare breast was one of them. Not Lucius, though. When he was sure he was right, he allowed precious little to stand in his way. His desire for control gave no quarter to safety, or sanity, or even good taste.  
  
All Severus' ambiguous emotions turned to loathing as their hands squeezed the girl's breast. She felt utterly pliant, nothing like Molybdena, and yet divine.  
  
"Now, kiss her," Lucius hissed into his ear, and he found himself obeying.  
  
Her mouth was soft and satisfying.  
  
"We took the Dark Lord's mark together, cousin; what could be more intimate than that?" Lucius said in a voice that was almost soft enough to be a whisper.  
  
Severus dropped the hand that had gripped her bare waist of its own accord and slipped quickly out of both of their grasps.  
  
"No," he said, panting. "You are overlooking one important facet of the situation, cousin."  
  
"And that is?" Lucius asked, the black centers of his pale blue eyes dilated past reckoning.  
  
Severus became suddenly desperate: desperate to find a reason to reject her; desperate to tell Lucius anything but the truth - that what he wanted above all else, above red hair and an ample bosom, was to be wanted for himself.  
  
Viciously he pushed down all emotion, until his blood felt cold in his veins. He cleared his throat and straightened his robes. "If her father was a blood traitor, how I could ever manage to trust her?"  
  
"Please," she said, speaking for the first time and grabbing hold of his sleeve. "Please."  
  
"Certainly, she seems tractable enough now that she's desperate to save her skin," he said wrenching her fingers from his clothes once more and willing himself not to look at her face, "but give her a few complacent years in the safety of my hearth and I fear she'll betray me first chance she gets."  
  
"Please, Professor Snape," she whimpered, throwing her naked body against him. "I...I...I will...I have always admired you. Please."  
  
She had been his student? His stomach turned violently and he nearly crushed her little hands attempting to disentangle them from his robes.  
  
"Besides," he said looking sourly at Lucius, "surely you realize that were I to - to do as you suggest, I would eventually be expected to have a conversation with this creature?" Neither his face nor his voice betraying any emotion but disdain.  
  
The other man abruptly burst into peals of laughter. "You do have a point, Severus. It wouldn't do to mix with tainted blood, would it? No matter how appealing it might seem in the short run." Almost lazily he drew his wand and pointed it at the girl. "ADAVA KEDARVA," he said.  
  
The girl's eyes bulged, her mouth twisted, and she fell dead.  
  
Severus did nothing, said nothing, made no move except to step over the body.  
  
Eight days later, he betrayed the Dark Lord and became Dumbledore's agent within the Death Eaters' ranks. He told himself the two incidents were in no way related.  
  
~:~:~:~:~:~:~  
  
He half expected her, and yet he was caught by surprise when she came.  
  
He was a man now, not a troubled boy. A man who had taken the dark mark, who had done things that would make her little clerk swallow his tongue in terror.  
  
Her message arrived at his chambers but they met in the Forbidden Forest. She wore a green cloak with her long hair braided down her back and waited for him to speak. She was a woman now, and it made him realize for the first time what a girl she'd been before.  
  
Having had five children, she was thicker around the middle, though perhaps not as thick as he'd imagined she might be. She had an air of seriousness she had not had before, and although he would never say so, he thought it suited her.  
  
"Molybdena," he said.  
  
"Severus," she said defiantly.  
  
"May I assume you have come to me because you want something?"  
  
She nodded.  
  
"Shall I guess what that is? Legilimens really isn't my specialty, but I suppose I ought to make an attempt." He looked to see if her lip twitched. It didn't.  
  
"They say you've got the Dark Mark, that you're a Death Eater." She said it as though she didn't believe it.  
  
Poor Molybdena; always so naive. At that moment he despised her, despised her faith in him, despised that it was strong enough to deny the worst, but too weak to hope for the best. The hackneyed phrase 'too little, too late' sprang to mind unbidden.  
  
"Well, for once the ubiquitous 'they' are right. I took the Mark not long after I saw you and little Whatshisname that day in Diagon Alley." He looked at her dispassionately. "I am a Death Eater."  
  
She had the gall to look sorry for him. "Oh Sev, it's all my fault-"  
  
"Don't flatter yourself, woman. You had nothing to do with it."  
  
"I could have stopped you."  
  
"Perhaps," he answered before he had the chance to stop himself. "Is that all you came for, to see if the rumors were true?"  
  
She hesitated.  
  
"Of course it isn't," he supplied. "You want a favor, surely. What is it? The Dark Lord's autograph?"  
  
"Protection," she whispered. "For the children. And Arthur."  
  
"That would be a wise request. The bodies are piling up outside, aren't they? But you've made a mistake in coming to me. Your mistake is thinking I'll care." His one hope that she would give up and go away. Still in the back of his mind some tiny part felt a niggling pleasure in her presence, even if she was angry.  
  
"I am prepared to strike a bargain," she said.  
  
"And what exactly would the terms be?"  
  
"That is entirely up to you," she answered levelly, making certain there was no more question about exactly what the offer entailed.  
  
If only she'd asked him six months ago; then they'd both be damned.  
  
"Hmm. You've gone down hill," he sneered, half meaning it. "It's not much of a bargaining chip - a fat old witch."  
  
"I see." Her face stony, she turned to go.  
  
He never meant to grab her by the wrist and pull her to him, hissing, "Could you do it, Molybdena? Could leave your clerk and the brats behind? Become Lady Snape? Could you take the Dark Mark for me?"  
  
"If that's what it takes to keep them safe, yes," she said without hesitation.  
  
"Would you let me make you happy?" he said softly, making a fool of himself yet again.  
  
"I'd try," she said flatly. "I'd try."  
  
He pushed her away. Someday her honesty would be the death of her -  
  
- but not yet.  
  
"It's a good thing we don't have to try it out. I'd hate to disappoint you yet again. You see, my dear Molybdena, I AM a Death Eater, I HAVE taken the Mark. But I am also a traitor, working for Dumbledore; a spy. If I were to be found out, as I most certainly will be, eventually, any life under my protection would be worth less than nothing. It seems I have as little to offer as you," he said with a bitter smile.  
  
Molybdena appeared to be holding her breath. "I knew they were wrong about you, Sev. I knew it," she whispered.  
  
"Then you're a fool," he said through gritted teeth, "as am I, for a multitude of reasons." He frowned. "You are endangered by knowing even what little I have told you tonight."  
  
Trust Molybdena to find the perfect moment for a non-sequitur. "Do you like Bill, Sev?" she asked.  
  
He shrugged. He honestly had given the matter no thought whatsoever. Bill was a student in a sea of students. If he had indeed fathered the boy, it didn't matter. Not to him, not now. It seemed like a paltry question.  
  
"Well?" The insolent woman frowned and all but tapped her foot at him.  
  
It was insulting to be offered her considerable charms one minute and treated like a recalcitrant child the next. But that was Molybdena; he supposed this new creature, apart from the obvious wear and tear, was not all that different from the old one.  
  
"He is more than adequate at potions but he fails to give them sufficient effort. The boy has a poor attitude towards his professors and an inflated sense of his own importance. He borders on quite good on the rare occasion he can be bothered to pay attention for an entire class period," he said at last.  
  
"So you know which one he is?" she asked, smiling.  
  
"I suppose I could pick him out in a crowd," he answered. In Severus Snape's opinion there was no way he could be that smiling boy's father. Bill had Arthur Weasley all but written on his face.  
  
"I suppose you could," she answered, almost teasing.  
  
"Truthfully, how can you know for sure? There were three or four others you saw as frequently as you saw me," he said, his expression utterly flat.  
  
"I have always assumed he is Arthur's," she said. "It's easier that way."  
  
After some consideration he asked, "Does Arthur know the truth could be - otherwise?"  
  
"Severus," she sighed, "I haven't sat down with him and told him his first born might not be his own, but he was well aware you and I weren't playing gobstones up there in my room all those afternoons. He's not stupid; he's simply a good man."  
  
"Is there a difference?" he asked, then paused before a short sharp laugh erupted from his twisted mouth. "The most amusing part of this is, all those years ago, I actually believed you when you said Arthur was there to borrow money. Of course, I was all of 15 at the time."  
  
Molly Weasley winced.  
  
"Molybdena, please understand, what I said earlier, about you going down hill, I was being -" he paused in calculation, hoping she would save him from the rest of the apology.  
  
"I know exactly what you were being, Severus Snape," she said sharply.  
  
"Then may I offer my most sincere apology?" he said, extending his hand.  
  
"Is that all you're offering?" Cautiously she raised her hand to accept his and was rewarded by an ostentatious display of Severus Snape's powers. With a grasp so quick a Muggle wouldn't even have been able to discern it as motion, he lowered Molybdena to the grass and planted a kiss to the inside of her wrist where her warm pulse beat. The same pulse that did not even bother to quicken under the heat and weight of his grand gestures.  
  
"What are you doing?" she asked sharply, not fighting as he held her hands tight over her head and buried his face in her neck.  
  
"Apologizing," came his voice, muffled against her throat. He was pressing against her marvelous soft body. She was moments away from having her robe disappear, or having it ripped manually from her body. He bore down hard on her, willing her to feel him, to know him again the way she had years before.  
  
A shiver went through her and he felt it. "Please, stop it. Please, Sev. Sev, stop."  
  
He rolled off of her immediately, wincing. "I should have known you wouldn't have wanted me if I didn't have anything to offer in exchange."  
  
"I'm a married woman," she answered, exasperated. "What about Arthur?"  
  
"What about Arthur? What about Arthur? Oh, hang Arthur," Severus snapped. "You were just as married four minutes ago when you offered to take up the Dark Mark and enter into a life of utter depravity as Lady Snape to save your precious children."  
  
"Stop it, Sev," she said wearily. "I love Arthur."  
  
"Stop what? I only ask a minuscule something for myself. It's not exactly leaving everything and swearing allegiance to He-Who- Must-Not-Be-Named, is it? I can't be that much of a chore, can I?"  
  
"Sev, stop-"  
  
"Besides, I loved you and that didn't get me very far, did it?"  
  
"I've been a faithful wife and mother these last twelve years," she told him.  
  
"Yes, and that completely erases the past, doesn't it? Time restores all chastity - that's in the Goblin Accords, isn't it?" he snarled, sitting up on his elbows. "Well, it wasn't exactly fair to go around rescuing wounded birds and sending them off to find their own supper once you'd gotten them all fat and lazy. They would all have been better off if you'd skipped the sentimentality and just snapped their stupid necks where you found them."  
  
"What is wrong with you, Sev?"  
  
"It's Severus. If you can't be bothered to say the entire thing, don't bother at all. Most people call me Professor Snape, to my face at least," he said. "Behind my back I'm 'Greasy Git' to my students and 'Miserable Bastard' to my colleagues."  
  
"Well, Professor Snape, I don't know why you are still playing the wounded school boy with me. Yes, it was wrong; yes, I was foolish; yes, you were entirely too young. But it's been twelve long years and I can't be the only female of the species left in all the British Isles. Why don't you try your arguments on an unmarried woman? Who knows, you might actually have a chance."  
  
"You stupid hag. You really think this is about sex? You were my frien-" He stopped himself. Suddenly quiet, most of his venom gone, he continued. "The only real friend I ever had. Then one Saturday I walk into Hogsmeade and you're gone, house and everything. I hear you've married Arthur Weasley through the usual rumor mill, but do I receive a single owl? No, I do not."  
  
"It was Arthur. He asked me not to see you again, once we were married."  
  
"Nice to know even the sainted Arthur is capable of petty jealousy. What was he afraid of? Did he really think a sixteen year old boy was going to steal his wife?" he muttered.  
  
"Wouldn't you have tried?"  
  
"Probably," he said sourly. "I would have made a terrible husband. And I loathe children."  
  
Molly Weasley laughed. "But Sev - excuse me, Professor Snape - you're a teacher."  
  
"I thought you had more compassion than to mock the afflicted."  
  
She looked lovely laughing with bits of grass in her hair, he thought. The front of her robe had come undone and from his vantage point her breasts looked as heart-wrenchingly perfect as ever.  
  
He wanted to revisit the best days of his life, if only for an hour. At that moment he would have given a great deal to simply rest his head on her bosom and have a long complaint about the unfairness of the world, but that time had long since passed. The very notion made him feel childish and weak.  
  
Some perverse instinct led him to touch the place on his arm where the Dark Mark prickled beneath the skin.  
  
"Is that where you have it? The Dark Mark? Can I see, Severus?" she asked gently.  
  
He nodded, pulling back his sleeve to reveal the vivid black skull with a serpent between its lips that burned his skin.  
  
It was entirely in keeping with her character that she reached out for him then. It was entirely in keeping with his that he misunderstood.  
  
How much would it matter? The Dark Lord would kill them all before the year was out.  
  
All the best lies start with the truth.  
  
She looked both sad and afraid, but she didn't say no. In retrospect, he couldn't say whether she was complicit or not.  
  
He did everything she would allow him to do. He tried his hands, his mouth, his sex, in a vain attempt to rouse her heart, to make that one dark night just like old times; intimate and high spirited.  
  
It was a ridiculous desire. He had lost whatever innocence he once had and she was a married woman who'd borne five children.  
  
She responded as one sleepwalking. Her body shuddered while the thing inside her he wanted most lay still and watchful just beyond his grasp.  
  
When it was over, she could not bring herself to look at him.  
  
"Molybdena," he called her name as he held here there on the cold, cold ground.  
  
"Molly," she said, as she looked up at the white hot stars. "I go by Molly now, Severus."  
  
~:~:~:~:~:~  
  
He noted, with mixed feelings, that Bill Weasley's mother gave birth to yet another child the following spring. A boy, he heard.  
  
When Ronald Weasley was old enough to come to school, Snape was thoroughly repulsed at the sight of him; a tall, thin boy, more sullen and spiteful than the rest of his happy-go-lucky clan, and possessing a distastefully familiar talent for feeling put-upon.  
  
The situation was exacerbated by the fact that Ron quickly made himself inseparable from the Potter boy.  
  
Molybdena made no move to contact him.  
  
If he had any suspicions, he would keep them to himself.  
  
~:~:~:~:~:~  
  
Sixteen years later, it was night at 12 Grimauld Place.  
  
Molybdena's husband was in hospital, attacked by the Dark Lord himself, giving every indication he was dying.  
  
It was Severus' duty. He risked all to keep track of the Dark Lord's movements, to be an ear inside that camp. Still, it was The Potter boy who had seen it all, who had given the warning. Severus had once again fallen short.  
  
He doubted Molybdena believed he had failed her intentionally; more likely, she had come to expect it of him. Somehow, though, he had the feeling that once Arthur succumbed she would have less use for him than ever.  
  
No, she wouldn't want him to rush in and rescue her, even if such a thing were possible. Ron Weasley would not want the venerable decrepitude that was Snape Hall, and a title without gold in Gringott's would have as much value for him as it had for young Severus Snape.  
  
Even dead, Arthur Weasley made a better husband and father than he did.  
  
Snape knew he was not an ideal source of comfort. Not even a second string comforter, if the truth were known. He was aware of his strengths, and empathy for his fellow creatures wasn't among them.  
  
He hung back, watching her. The children, mercifully, were asleep. The others were gone. Shaklebolt had strongly suggested Molybdena get some rest; he might as well have suggested she join the Chudley Canons.  
  
He thought about repeating Shaklebolt's order, but it would be presumptuous of him, and vaguely ridiculous. Who was he to tell Molly Weasley to do anything? It had been a lifetime since they were even friends. If he harbored some lingering fond thoughts about her, it mattered to no one but himself.  
  
He walked closer. She was no longer lovely and he was surprised that he no longer cared.  
  
Since the Order of The Phoenix had been reformed, she'd offered him the same blanket hospitality and inimitable Molybdena concern she gave the others - ladled his soup from same pot, as it were. When he did return to the headquarters, well past midnight most evenings, she was waiting up to make sure the night hadn't swallowed him whole. When he sat staring before the fire, she urged a plate on him whether he wanted it or not. But there were no arguments, large or small. No intimacy. Perhaps he resented it slightly, but he wasn't sure he had a right to expect it to be otherwise.  
  
He was not blameless. He knew he had, finally and ultimately, done wrong to her that night in the forest. If he'd once had any kind of claim to her friendship, he'd given it up when he used her tender feelings against her.  
  
It was not outright murder, but it was its own small death.  
  
Impulsively, he cleared his throat. "Is there anything I can do, Molly? Anything?"  
  
She didn't turn around.  
  
"No," was all she said.  
  
The End 


End file.
